30 Nov, 2019
Doing What the WFC Cannot Do
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Nghi Vo’s 2020 The Empress of Salt and Fortune is a standalone secondary world novella.
The Empress In-yo of Anh is dead. Another woman will be crowned Empress. Now that In-yo’s reign is over, long-buried secrets can be revealed. Cleric Chih is assigned to rectify history.
28 Nov, 2019
Special Requests
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2019’s The River South is the second volume of Marta Randall’s Riders Guild series.
Abandoned by her mother, Kieve Rider, as a baby, Shrug was left to the care of the Rider Guild in Koerstadt. The Guild was a careless guardian and Shrug a challenging ward.
Someone else seems to have a keen interest in Shrug’s future. This unknown party would like Shrug’s future to be short. Shrug escapes the first assassin.
One of the riders, Daenet, remembers Kieve fondly and tries to protect her daughter against further attempts. He takes Shrug with him on a river voyage, which gets the girl out of Koerstadt. Daenet is accompanying Lord Kyst, whom he serves as rider (and who is also his lover).
27 Nov, 2019
Miscellaneous Reviews
Lina Rather’s 2019 Sisters of The Vast Black is a standalone science fiction novella.
The living starship Our Lady of Impossible Constellations conveys the sisters of the Order of Saint Rita between several extrasolar systems, where they minister to scattered human colonies. Their spiritual ministry often takes a back seat to medical assistance. Forty years ago the colonies cast off the rule of the Earth Central Governance. Freedom from ECG comes bundled with freedom from all the medical resources ECG once provided.
During the revolution, the rebels scourged the Earth, executing some ECG leaders and driving the others into exile, For some time the wounded ECG let the colonies to go their own way. Now the ECG is looking outward again. This will affect the sisters on board Our Lady of Impossible Constellations.
25 Nov, 2019
Miscellaneous Reviews
2019’s Catfishing on CatNet is the first volume of Naomi Kritzer’s new YA series.
Fleeing Steph’s abusive father, Steph’s mother has spent the better part of a decade moving from town to town. Denied time to put down roots and forbidden to stay in contact with any friends she might make during her brief stays, Steph has turned to the internet for companionship. CatNet, an online forum whose denizens share pictures of cats (and other animals), is the closest thing she has to a social circle.
One of her online friends is not like the others.
24 Nov, 2019
Because My Tears Are Delicious To You
Robert A. Heinlein’s 1957 The Door into Summeris a standalone SF novel. I am glad that it had no sequels and no prequels, as I am sure I would have grown to hate them as well. Why? Read on.
It’s 1970 and Dan Davis has survived World War Three. He and his business partner have started a cutting-edge cybernetics company. The business is stolen from him by his conniving fiancée (Belle) and his equally traitorous partner (Miles). Who could have predicted that blindly signing business documents could turn out so badly?
The evil pair aren’t satisfied with bilking Dan out of his company. They want him gone; he might make trouble. Murder, they feel, is too risky. But drugging him and putting him into suspended animation … that’s different.
Dan goes to sleep in the futuristic year 1970. He wakes in the even more futuristic year 2000.
22 Nov, 2019
Doing What the WFC Cannot Do
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2019’s Realm of Ash is the second volume in Tasha Suri’s series, Books of Ambha.
Arwa’s family hoped that her marriage would raise the family’s diminished status. But a brutal massacre at Darez Fort left her a widow. Widowhood means loss of position, of status, of any chance of remarriage. She is banished to a secluded retreat for upper class widows.
Arwa has a secret. She believes the massacre was her fault and that she is cursed. She is, after all, not the proper Ambhan lady she appears to be.
20 Nov, 2019
Translation
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The Sheltering Rain is a collection by Ryō Hanmura. This edition was translated by Jim Hubbert.
The Shinjuku district is no longer a seedy hive of open criminality, but it’s still not quite respectable. Its bars are home to people who don’t fit in elsewhere.
19 Nov, 2019
Special Requests
2019’s Mapping Winter is the first volume in Marta Randall’s Riders Guild secondary universe speculative fiction series. It is a reworking of her 1983 novel Sword of Winter1.
Kieve Rider delivers portentous news to the scattered communities of Dalmorat Province. After four decades of autocratic rule, Lord Cadoc Marubin is finally dying. Few will be sad to see the Lord dead, but his death may not bring happiness to his subjects. Cadoc leaves behind an innovative system of secret police and midnight arrests, ugly tools his successor may set aside … or take up.
Kieve Rider despises Cadoc but, having sworn an oath to him, has no choice but to serve. Like the rest of the people of Dalmorat, she hopes Cadoc’s death will bring freedom for her. It may instead send her to her own death.
17 Nov, 2019
Because My Tears Are Delicious To You
Philip José Farmer’s 1971 To Your Scattered Bodies Go is the first volume in his Riverworld series. It won a best novel Hugo. Mysterious are the ways of Hugos.
Famed Victorian traveler Richard Burton caps off a life of adventure, exploration, and risqué translations by dying. The end.
Not quite.
16 Nov, 2019
Translation
Ken Liu’s 2019 Broken Stars: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation is an anthology of translated contemporary Chinese SF.